Listen to the Butterfly – Your Metamorphosis

As a child, what small creatures scared you the most? I know most people fear spiders. I wasn’t afraid of spiders because my grandma loved them, and I learned to appreciate them from her. But I found caterpillars very scary and repulsive. They are poisonous, and the fuzzy tufts (tiny hairs) on caterpillars can cause an allergic reaction when they touch the skin.

However, our attitude toward caterpillars changed when we discovered their metamorphosis into beautiful butterflies. The potential of these creepy creatures earns our respect. They expand our imagination and demonstrate our own potential. If you believe God talks to us through nature, caterpillars and butterflies communicate who we are and what we can become—spiritually.

Caterpillars don’t have eyes. They use small antennas to feel their way on the trees and eat the leaves. It illustrates our spiritual blindness before salvation. Caterpillars crawl slowly, but the butterflies fly swiftly, representing two entirely different ways of living.

According to zoologists, all a caterpillar does is eat and secrete—very egocentric. But a butterfly beautifies the earth and pollinates plants to nurture nature. We can say caterpillars are takers, but butterflies are givers. The difference is heaven and earth.

It would be a shame if we lived all our lives as caterpillars and never experienced a butterfly life. Jesus calls the butterfly life “the kingdom of heaven,” and he wants us to strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness and promises all things to be given to us as well. He wants us to prioritize our spiritual metamorphosis. The entire teaching of Jesus Christ is revealed in his initial message,

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Mt 4:17 ESV).

If you understand this verse, you have cracked the code of the entire Bible. John the Baptist preached the same message, and Jesus continued proclaiming it. Many scholars and theologians have tried to summarize the Bible. Some say that the entire message of the Bible is “Love” or “God is love.” Some say the Great Commandment summarizes the Bible, “Love God and love people.”

I agreed with them in the past, but after twenty-seven years of preaching, teaching, and studying the Bible, I have discovered this verse the be the most accurate representation of Jesus’ message because it has the keyword “repent.” Both in Hebrew and Greek, “repent” means “change.” It’s changing from living like a caterpillar to flying like a butterfly. In other words, “repent” means “metamorphose.”

In the entire Old Testament, we read about God asking the Israelites to change. In the New Testament, Jesus shows us the way to change. The only thing consistent on earth is change. If you are not changing for the better, you are changing for the worse. Jesus shows us how to change for the best. God loves you the way you are, but God loves you too much to leave you the way you are.

Without change, the gospel is incomplete. The Bible is the book of change, the alchemy of the spirit. From that perspective, studying the Bible is super exciting and ultra important because you will fly through life like a butterfly instead of crawling like a caterpillar.

One of the problems with the Reformed Protestants is that we over-emphasize grace and under-emphasize change to the point that it becomes cheap grace. Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us that grace is free but not cheap. The costly part of grace is that we must change—from a caterpillar to a butterfly, from a pheasant to a phoenix.

God’s grace compels you to change instead of keeping complacent. How do we change? The way to change begins by appreciating the butterfly life. Until you appreciate the value of the butterfly life, you will continue to crawl like a caterpillar. In one of his parables, Jesus wants you to be like a smart pearl merchant who knows the value of a top-quality pearl and is willing to sell everything we own to get it. He said,

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Mt 13:45–46).

Can you imagine what it is like to discover something so valuable that you would give up everything to get it? That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like. Just as a caterpillar would give up everything to become a butterfly, Jesus wants us to risk everything for our metamorphosis.

Today is Transfiguration Sunday. A more precise translation from Greek would be “Metamorphosis Sunday.” On this day in history, Jesus showed three of his disciples a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven—a glimpse of the butterfly life in the caterpillars’ world. The passage also reveals what we must do to live in heaven on earth. Let’s begin!